42 they did two at a time until about noon, when the first pair returned. The last flight returned just at darkness. Then they would go up on the bank and sleep In nests they had made of fern, pine needles, and reeds. "Though their transition to flight was awkward, they flew magnificent- ly-as I learned later, up to sixty miles per hour. Because of their great speed, I was at first unable to foHow them. But one day I was in town and had just stepped out of the post office, when I saw two of them flying by in the same direction as the road. You can imagine the surprise of the sheriff when I jumped into his idling car and ordered him to foHow the loons. He did, and we discovered that they fed in a wide section of the river, where there were many fish but where the loons could not have lived because the water ran too fast. I watched them over time and found that they lived in mated pairs, that they kept faIth, and that they showed e:-reat concern and tenderness u for one another. In fact, their loyalty and intimacy were as heautiful to ob- serve as their graceful bodies of brown, white, and gray. "I soon discovered an attached pair which seemed to be special. Though the female was not as majestic as some, and though she modestly moved about her business and did not lord it over the group as others did, she was extraordina rily beautiful-despite her imperfections, or perhaps because of them. She had a gentleness, a quietness, a tentativeness, which showed how finely she was aware of the sad beauty in the life they lived. You could see the seasons on her face, and that she felt and suffered deeply . Nonetheless, she was a strong and robust flier. This combination intrigued me, this union of gentleness and strength. "Her mate was fulJ of energy and wounds. Part of his foot was missing. A great gash was cut into his wing. You see, he and others like him had flown into the hunters' guns. FIsher- mep think that loons steal their catch. This is incorrect, and yet the loons are hunted down time and again, and their number steadily decreases. This ll1ay explain why they had chosen a small lake in lieu of an abundant sea. "Anyway, he was alternately gre- garious and reclusive. Sometimes he led or harried the others, and sometimes he would not go near them. For her, this was most difficult. Loons are good fliers and graceful swimmers. They can stay under water for several min- utes, and they have been observed to dive as far as two hundred and fiftv ,.I feet below the surface. But on land ^ HOPIT AL ALBER T SCHWEITZER (DESCHAPELLES, HAITI: 1961) I pass the old beggar who sits, sucking on a corncob pipe, in the shade of a huge gray mapou tree, its roots stuck with candle stubs, gifts for the ghosts inside; d-own the hill past the stench of the courtyard where burros are tethered, across the parched lawn where kin of the sick squat beside charcoal fires cookIng rice and red beans; up the steps and through a double set of screen doors that never yet kept malaria out. Mother, I'm coming down the halls toward the room where you he, coughing and soon to die. And if 1 had known, as no one did, that this would be the last visit, what could I have brought? All I have: the sweat and sights and smells of Haiti under my straw hat. -GREGORY ORR . they can hardly move, because they are, I think, the only bird whose leg is mainly within the body, so much are they like swimmers. When moving on land, they waddle and they fall. Many, many times, he went up on- shore and pushed for the woods. I saw her looking after him. It pained her to see him moving so awkwardly into the thicket, where perhaps a fox might get hIm. It made her feel as If she were not loved. For if she were, she thought, why would he take such risks? But he was driven in all direc- tions and frequently made her feel alone and apart. And yet she loved him, and she loved him very strongly, despite what appeared to be her reti- cence. "They would lie up against one an- other, have long conversations in their many voices, circle the lake, and sometimes put their faces together so that their eyes touched. The days passed one after another until it became ir- redeemably dark. Then, from the north, another group of loons came winging in and threw the lake into : . f' '" .- .i1 !!. '___ II ,', ..... - ' .... Pi ....1./ , it-.' i .. ,. ...';. WP . chaos. They were unattached and theIr arrival electrified the others. "She felt Immediately threatened be- cause of his curiosity and the way he had always wandered away. This frightened her, and she kept to her- self, closing off to him. All he knew was that she became colder and colder. He did not realize that she loved so much that her fear ran ahead of her, and he began to take up with the group from the north. He paid much atten- tion to one in particular-a brilliant fe- Inale, with whom one day he flew off to the feeding place, where the river was fast and full of fish. "She was so hurt that she could not even think. And when he returned, enthused and energIzed, she was hurt all the more. But it would have passed had he not done it again and again, un- tIl she was forced to go alone south to the feeding place, and fish alone in front of all while he was occupied with the new one. And she flew back alone, her heart beating against the rhythm of her wings, her eyes nearly blind, for she loved him so much, and he had be- trayed her. "As time passed, the pain was too much for her to bear, and she left. Her departure worked through him like a harrow, and all was changed. As in the classical Greek and Latin romances, he realized what he had done, and, more to the point, how valuable she was dnd how he loved her, and he was thrashed with remorse. He set out to find her. Despite his skill and experi-